Another Brutalist landmark by the Owen Luder partnership is biting the dust in Gateshead, which recently disposed of his famous, or alternatively notorious, 'Get Carter' car park.

There have been fewer palpitations about the fate of the 'Dunston Rocket' than there were about the car park, which did have a curious grace in addition to its role in the cult film starring Michael Caine.

The 'rocket' is a 30-storey tower block of uncompromising, well, ugliness, commissioned in a rather remarkable feat of localism by the long defunct Whickham town council. The intentions were admirable but the execution and subsequent maintenance apparently less so, down to the revolutionary caisson foundations which doubled as a car park.

Not for long. They were so revolutionary and the geology was so treacherous that they flooded repeatedly and were soon abandoned as none of the tenants owned a submarine.

The 'rocket' had a downmarket version of Get Carter through starring in a TV commercial for Tudo crisps, but that failed to endear it to anyone much over the years beyond diehard fans of Brutalism. Certainly Gateshead's Labour council leader Mick Henry isn't too upset to be losing it. He's been up to the top floor to give a brief initial hand to two radio-controlled robot demolition machines which are nibbling at floors 30 to 19 because conventional methods of dismantling would be too dangerous.

Henry says:

I'm aware that some people find the building architecturally interesting. But, the fact is, people did not want to live here and a 30-storey tower block cannot be maintained on claimed architectural merits alone.

Indeed, there are mixed views about its architectural merit and many people in the area have longed to see a skyline without this building. They feel it represents a Gateshead of the past, with long outdated misconceptions about what the modern North East is like.

It's good to celebrate the past, but it's also important to build the future. And that means housing and facilities that are fit for the future of Gateshead and its residents. We've already waved goodbye to the 'Get Carter' car park and, now that the 'rocket' is coming down, we can move forward with new confidence, reflecting our firm ambitions to become a city.

In all its splendour...

Gateshead is very bullish about its chances in that department, with the Queen expected to name at least one new city as part of her diamond jubilee. Sunderland has done nicely out of its elevation in 1992, as has Preston, which became a city ten years later. It gives a place added confidence.

Gateshead has an unusual combination of distinctions in its shorthand argument for joining the select category. It calls itself:

Whatever your views on the council's choice of structures to remove, no one can argue with its record of putting new ones up. The four great glories of modern Tyneside – the Angel, the Baltic, the Sage and the Winking Bridge – are Gateshead projects, every one.

The 'rocket' – officially known as Derwent Tower – will be replaced with new, mostly family homes, along with a doctor's surgery, chemist, supermarket, other shops and accommodation for the elderly. It should have disappeared fully by the autumn, 44 years after the first bucket of concrete was poured.